how can I find out what cargo a ship is carrying?

[Young Sea Cat]

Hi there

I live on the coast of Portsmouth, UK and watch the various cargo and container ships sail past daily... I can find out their tonnage, destination ports, current location, speed of travel via this website and others etc... but what I really want to know is 'what cargo are they carrying?'...

any ideas how I can find out?

[husni]

Hi,

VHF (here ch 16 or 12) one of my way to find out, when she in/out.
Or sometimes I go to Pilot office if needed.

[Young Sea Cat]

Hi,

VHF (here ch 16 or 12) one of my way to find out, when she in/out.
Or sometimes I go to Pilot office if needed.

what do you mean VHF?

[MO Roy]

Hi,

 VHF is an abbreviation for Very High Frequency. It's a 'radio-band' for short distances (more or less up to 100 miles).
So in short it's a means of communication between shore and ship.

For your original answer, you won't find out what's in all the boxes, even the people on board don't know.
We only know the so called Dangerous Goods classed by the IMO (International Maritime Organization) and the cargo inside the reefer-boxes.
And those are kind of big fridges in the form of a container and plugged in the ships electricity netwok.

Now the dangerous goods (in Europe) are reported to shore stations so that's what you're able to find out if you have a VHF receiver.
But then you will only get a list of all the classes and not really all the substances so not of much use.

Cheers,
Roy

[jadran]

Hi Roy,
Nicely written with a comprehensive explanation.
Thank you!
I really did enjoy reading this your interesting information.
Regards /Jadran

[Young Sea Cat]

Hi,

 VHF is an abbreviation for Very High Frequency. It's a 'radio-band' for short distances (more or less up to 100 miles).
So in short it's a means of communication between shore and ship.

For your original answer, you won't find out what's in all the boxes, even the people on board don't know.
We only know the so called Dangerous Goods classed by the IMO (International Maritime Organization) and the cargo inside the reefer-boxes.
And those are kind of big fridges in the form of a container and plugged in the ships electricity netwok.

Now the dangerous goods (in Europe) are reported to shore stations so that's what you're able to find out if you have a VHF receiver.
But then you will only get a list of all the classes and not really all the substances so not of much use.

Cheers,
Roy

thanks for that..... that's a shame... will keep the imagination alive I guess. What did you mean by this 'the cargo inside the reefer-boxes.'.... what is a reefer box and how can we know what is inside them?

[MO Roy]

Hi "Young Sea Cat",

Reefer-boxes are refrigerated containers. They got their own refrigeration unit and the are powered, when on board, by plugging them into the ships electricity network (more or less the same as you would plug in your home's fridge into to you home network, but of course then different).
These reefers, as they are called, can contain all kind of perishable cargo such as fruit but also frozen stuff like meat, poultry etc. but then also chemicals that needs to be transported at a certain temperature.
On board we get so called manifests stating the kind of cargo, but you on land will not find out the contents unless you have contacts with shippers who offer their cargo to a container line for transport.

Regarding the Dangerous goods we on board also receive manifests stating the nature of the cargo with all kind of extra information in case of an emergency, i.e. fire and/or spill.

Cheers,
Roy

[Allan RO]

regarding the vessels coming into Portsmouth, largely bananas (Pompey is largest port for Banana imports) but also other exotic fruit, pineapples etc, and occasionally cocaine

Allan

[Riverman2903]

Just curious, but could we ask your approx age please?

Always good to see the younger generation taking an interest in the sea and ships, but with the amount of information out there on the internet terms such as "VHF" and "reefer box" are fairly common but then perhaps those of us that take these things for granted have underestimated the ability of the education system and shipping/port organisations to get this information out to the curious such as yourself.